Thane: Post office deliveryman held for stealing debit cards, withdrawing lakhs

The Thane crime branch’s Wagle Estate Unit 5 has arrested a 22-year-old deliveryman for the Post Office for using 87 newly dispatched debit cards to withdraw cash.

Pretending to be a bank executive, he used to contact customers to get their one-time passwords (OTPs) and withdraw money from ATM kiosks. The police suspect nearly Rs 6 lakh was withdrawn fraudulently. They have also seized a car worth Rs 2.5 lakh bought with stolen money.

The police said the complainant in the case is a manager of a nationalised bank, who registered a cheating case with Shrinagar police station in Thane.

As per the complaint, the accused, identified as Mohammed Tauhid Mohammed Azim Shaikh, had used fresh debit cards of 16 customers to withdraw around Rs 1.62 lakh.

Senior police inspector Vikas Ghodke of Wagle estate Unit 5 was parallelly investigating the case, and found through technical information that the accused is based in Mumbra.

Accordingly, a trap was laid and Shaikh was arrested last week.

The police said Shaikh worked on contractual basis at the Thane post office from July-November 2021. “The debit cards were issued from Axis Bank, Bank of Baroda, Bank of India, among others.

He used ATM kiosks in Wagle Estate, Kharegaon and Mumbra to withdraw money using the cards after getting OTPs from unsuspecting customers,” Ghodke said.

Ghodke said after the initial complaint, the police have found around 86 debit cards, including three from Axis Bank, 40 from Bank of India, 37 from Bank of Baroda six others.